I look around but it's you I can't replace
by Terfle
Summary: Bernie reveals Marcus's secret hobby at Sunday lunch, much to the horror of his family. Serena has a few words to say on the matter. Serious smut


Cutlery was clinked and drinks were slurped. Plates were cleared by varying degrees, Bernie's was hardly touched while she nursed a tumbler of wine as her children gobbled their roast dinner. She made a fantastic roast dinner. Her ex-husband wasn't too hungry either and his constant glances at her was getting to be claustrophobic. His mother ate like a bird and she sat there watchfully sizing up her former daughter in law. One more snide comment and he was really going to be raked over the coals, vowed Bernie vengefully. Of course he did and of course she snapped.

'One more word Marcus and I'll tell everyone what you do in your spare time' she warned him with a steady spiteful gaze. He froze. He wasn't sure if she'd dare, Bernie had never been the vindictive type. But then she'd changed. They both had.

 _The window had been open, their chatter and laughter filling the air the way that his and Bernie's never had. They were cooking, laughing, dancing around the kitchen to some silly song. He desperately wished it was with him she was doing it with._

 _Bernie looked like she belonged with that woman. They rained kisses on each other as casual as breathing. There was a glow about them that only they could inspire in each other and he hated them for it._

'What do you mean?' Cam looked nervous. She ignored him.

'You can punish me all you want but don't you dare target Serena.'

He growled in irritation. He didn't want to hear about Serena bloody Campbell.

'Dad? What did you do?'

'He's been stalking us for weeks.'

Silence reigned as they looked towards him. Marcus looked at his ex-wife, the bitter twist to her mouth when she looked at him these days. He hardly believed it of her and said so.

She threw down her fork in a temper.

'Oh give it a rest, Marcus! Don't pretend you've never seen it before. You probably tried to swear off girl on girl porn after you found out about me but I think you just couldn't resist watching it again. You were hiding in the wardrobe with your cock in your hand the whole time.'

Charlotte and Cam looked at her in horror. They'd never known her to speak so plainly and crudely. Valerie Dunn tutted in horror.

'Don't use that filthy language.'

Bernie rounded on her with such anger, the type Valerie had never seen before in her unsuitable ex-daughter in law.

'I'll speak as I please! I don't have to be polite when my ex-husband breaks into someone's house, sneaks into their bedroom and hides in the wardrobe watching them have sex with me!'

 _The window had been open, he'd climbed in while they were otherwise occupied and crept upstairs, knowing it would all be over if they'd discovered him. But they hadn't, they'd closed the window and followed him into Serena's room, not knowing he was there._

Bernie's tirade seemed to stop time, the air hovering tentatively around them. Cam and Charlotte were shocked beyond belief. They turned to him in confusion. Marcus flushed the colour of Serena's favourite wine. Deep down, he knew that she was so fed up of his recent behaviour that she wasn't prepared to keep quiet anymore.

 _She had good taste, he might have known she had. Cream walls, burnt orange curtains and duvet, light wood and simple lamps. It all looked simple and luxurious. He knew Bernie wouldn't have cared what the room looked like, anywhere would do if she had Serena but as he would soon learn, she certainly appreciated the bed. Memory foam mattress, plumped up pillows, very comfortable._

 _Enough space in the wardrobe to hide, even with the clothes and her perfume tickling his neck._

'Dad? You didn't?'

'The things you were doing with each other!' He protested.

'Oh don't even pretend you hadn't enjoyed it. You were dying to know what we do.'

'If I had known you preferred a glass penis to mine, I…'

She interrupted him by banging her glass on the table.

'Oh will you stop!'

 _What hell was that? He could barely imagine that these things existed. He'd seen a vibrator before but that was only in the girl on girl action. He usually watched the straight up sex, at least he could pretend that he was the one with the big cock fucking his wife to ecstasy, the way he never could in real life. They had one of those too but the thing that took his attention was that expertly twisted piece of glass that his ex-wife took extraordinary pleasure in. Extraordinary in that he could barely get her to be interested in his built-in piece of equipment so her reaction to this substitute puzzled him._

'I thought she was a reasonable woman! A fine surgeon with a dynamic reputation. How the hell did I know she was going to bat for your side?'

'You think _I_ did? She had no idea how I felt about her and I wasn't intending on letting her know.'

He looked mutinous. Bernie read the change of expression in his eyes and searched for what it meant. She thought she had finally got it.

'You don't want to respect her but you still do.'

 _Serena sat demurely on the edge of the bed and looked tantalisingly up at the fine figure of his ex-wife. He liked Bernie's self-assured stance, admiring her firm backside so unlike so many women of her age. He'd enjoyed many moments over the years watching that boyish figure uncurl from the sofa or the bed, the elegant unaware way she wore her height and the way people looked at her when she asserted herself._

 _He watched as Serena ran her hands up the slender legs and buckled those knees to either side of her. Sliding forward, she ran a finger through that mismatched hatch of nestled hair in front of her (the only way he'd realised that his ex-wife's blonde locks were not natural) and kissed that tiny nub, the one he'd overlooked when he'd first started bedding these desirable but mysterious creatures. He watched in fascination as she stroked under it with just that finger; kept kissing, tongue darting out to play with all of those velvety folds he'd never got the hang of. Most men he reckoned, were puzzled by what to do with them but watching another woman delicately wring out those lustful pants and groans from Bernie encouraged the unwanted but much needed effect in his trousers. He wished that he had been the one to do that but he was missing a pair of tits._

His expression told her what she needed to know.

 _He couldn't have made this up if he'd tried. He didn't even know what it was. It looked like some sort of contemporary piece of artwork but it was purple, expertly rubbed with lubricant and inserted into the place he'd not touched in a long time while his ex-wife leaned across the bedframe and pulled another woman's legs up around her to slide it in. She was so much more confident in this bed than she'd ever been in theirs and he was suddenly very attracted to her. His hand couldn't help moving where it was needed the most._

 _It was discreet once they started, he wouldn't have been able to tell it was there until he spotted the flashes of purple. He was ashamed to say that Serena's shameless cries of pleasure tipped him over the edge. He never thought he'd find the image of Bernie being with someone else so arousing._

'You're angry because I have more fun with her then I ever had done in my life.'

'You call frolicking naked on the beach in front of people, good fun?'

Heads turned to look at her in horror and the old Bernie would have ducked her head and expressed her shame at her desires being discovered but not now.

'You did what on a beach?'

It was the first time Charlotte had spoken to her mother in days. Bernie shrugged.

'It was a nudist beach.'

'You never would have done that with me' he retorted.

'Maybe I would have' she defiantly challenged him. 'But you never did have the imagination.'

His jaw dropped at this sudden audacity. He had no idea that she wanted to be so shameless and told her so.

'No more than anyone else' she replied with not a blush.

'She's a slut. I watched you fuck her with whatever that thing was and she bloody well enjoyed it.'

'All of a sudden she's a slut. Because you saw her flirting with men. Because she enjoys sex. Is she part of the reason you keep stalking us? Revenge on her as well?'

He muttered a denial but he didn't fool her. He _was_ curious about Serena and somewhere, still couldn't bring himself to hate her entirely.

 _A body very different from what he was used to, rounded in the way he'd expected but she carried it with sensuality, a rare trait. Her voice, her laugh rippled through the night air. He could understand the lure of Serena's breasts well enough which didn't prepare him for the sight of his ex-wife nipping at them. Her Fraulein._

'You never looked at me the way you look at her. You kiss her in a way you never kissed me.'

'I was never in love with you' she told him, a little sadly. His face crumpled and she thought she'd made him cry.

 _Was that what love was? Bernie snuffling a giggle while telling the other woman that she found another grey hair while she was licking down there, no less? The way that Serena had slapped her on the shoulder and told her what a bloody cheek she had and to get on with it, Major. He'd almost incriminated himself but they'd not heard the noise from the wardrobe._

 _They whispered to each other and laughed while they twisted round to kiss as Bernie pinned the other woman down and fucked her from behind. Marcus had never seen this alien creature before, the woman who had this surprising habit of kissing her lover's shoulders and neck so tenderly. But then he'd never seen her gratify another woman. She was triumphant in her awakening and he couldn't help studying that face he'd known for so many years, trying to find something that could have been for him. When he couldn't see it, he switched his attention to Serena but he found that just as hard because she had the most provocative expressions to match her voice. Those cruel red nails gripping the pillow while she let Bernie control her pleasure, a sensual mouth unlocked by lust, just waiting to be kissed. He found himself so distracted he could hardly keep his breath in check._

The doorbell chimed, jolting everyone out of their horrified trance. Marcus ran to get it, anything to get out of this nightmare. But when he opened the door, it got worse. She was standing in the hallway with a Pyrex dish. Her face darkened when she saw him, remembering the last time she saw him.

 _It was that damn nephew of hers. The gangly one who had come home late. Waiting until the lovers were deeply asleep, curled around each other in a way that made his heart clench with desire, he crept out and made it downstairs when a light came on and that retard had run halfway down the stairs shouting for his auntie. Bernie had arrived first, pulling a dressing gown on and exclaiming with anger as she saw him, Serena looking down on him from the top of the stairs. Confusion made way for scathing disdain, tumbled all around him like fire crackers. The fury that set in when they realised that he'd been spying on their most intimate moments. He was thrown out with hissing threats and a roar of wrath should he ever come near the house again._

She gave him the dish of apple crumble and told him to give it to Bernie. She was turning away when Bernie came to the door and told her that everyone knew about last fortnight. Serena was so surprised, she let herself be shepherded in through the flat. She cautiously said hi to Cam who greeted her warmly and assessed the other two unfriendly faces in the room. Charlotte she'd never met and this woman with the sour face who looked like she could be mother Dunn. Bernie introduced her simply as Serena. Everyone was now on the same page. They took it to the living room. Marcus tried to keep fighting for his lost cause.

'I don't know you anymore.'

'Maybe you never knew me.'

He shook his head in disbelief. 'No. That can't be true. It's her. She's a bad influence on you.'

'Oh what is this obsession of yours!'

'I don't have an obsession!'

'You wouldn't be this bothered if I were with a man. What is your fascination?' Her eyes glittered with malice, a look he'd never seen before. 'It can't just be me, you know what I look like naked.'

His eyes flickered to the figure opposite. Bernie realised that she must have known all along, ever since she knew he'd been doing it.

'You like her.'

'I do not' he growled.

'You wanted to watch her in bed! With me or without me. You've always liked doing that' she concluded in disgust.

He protested but it sounded weak even to his ears.

Serena was horrified. She could hardly believe that Marcus coveted a look at her body. He'd got more than just a look, he'd seen the whole show.

'How are you treat us like your personal peep show' she hissed. 'You've violated my privacy, my family's security and all for your petty revenge. Were you going to film it and put it up on the internet as well?'

He could barely glance at her, his shame revealed to his family's horrified gaze. His kids, his mother, they all knew what he'd been doing now. What he'd indulged in over the years. Exposed as the secret voyeur that he was. He'd watched Bernie getting dressed or undressed all the time with a hard gaze but he was her husband so she'd dismissed it. She'd never actually caught him at it but finding him in a state of disarray at debauched social events made her suspect. She'd even caught him scrambling away from people's windows at times. She'd accepted his excuses and said no more, telling herself that he wasn't like that. But she never thought he'd do this to her.

'You still respect her as a surgeon. You just didn't want to respect her because she's with me.'

He couldn't argue with that. He had very much liked the charming no-nonsense surgeon when he met her. He just hadn't bargained on his wife liking her much more than that. He'd felt a shred of satisfaction when she'd rounded on Bernie in anger, he was the injured party here and it felt right that she had reacted the same way.

As if reading his mind, Serena added 'I couldn't pretend I approved of what had happened. But it wasn't up to me to decide.'

He stared at her angrily.

'So you fell for her instead?'

'After a time, yes. I didn't think I could forgive a cheater but Bernie is nothing like my ex-husband.'

'How could you?' Charlotte shouted at her. She'd been silent for so long it felt like the atmosphere and those vicious words were pressing down on her and she could only feel the rush in her head as it whistled past her.

'Because as a parent, you get yourself trapped into situations that you have to carry on with and it'll never be easy to stay and it'll never be easy to leave but sometimes you just have to, no matter what the cost' Serena told her, silencing the sulky young woman. Charlotte was so much like her own daughter, it almost hurt. They shared the same middle name as well, Elizabeth.

'My daughter hasn't forgiven either of her parents for not living up to her version of happy families but we couldn't have done it. It was a mistake to have married him but I was trapped for a long time until I could get the resources to step away from him and tried to provide a stable home for her. It doesn't mean Bernie loves you any less because of the direction she felt like she needed to take.'

Cam knew it, Charlotte needed to hear it and Valerie couldn't believe it. This wasn't the done thing in her day. Serena fixed Marcus with a steely glare.

'Don't ever come to my house again or I will call the police.'

She turned to Valerie and curtly told her it was nice to meet her. Cam she acknowledged with warmth, neither wanting to fan the flames with their usual hug. He was the only one who understood and had cheered for them right from the start. He genuinely adored her which didn't go down well with the family.

Turning to Charlotte, she delivered her parting shot.

'One day you'll regret being cruel to your mother.'

She didn't smile as she turned round and looked at Bernie before she strode off but everyone saw the flash of lightening pass between them. They had something special that was impossible to deny and Marcus grudgingly knew it was time to stop this furtive little habit of his and leave well alone.


End file.
